'Every body' Testifies on the Life Saving of Intersex Stories

3min

 

The new documentary Every Body opens with a montage of gender reveal parties, balloon after balloon popping, colored smoke and confetti covering the screen. These rituals have always been embarrassing on their face — a part of straight culture as cringeworthy as those extremely wordy T-shirts — but they are also horrific. In a world where an estimated 1.7% of human beings have intersex traits, and where transgender people exist, declaring a binary sex before birth feels not just premature, but painfully insistent. For many intersex people, sayings like “it’s a boy” and “it’s a girl” are not mere observations, but rather commands enforced with scalpels.

The nonconsensual surgeries performed on intersex children, and the culture of silence around this continuing practice, is the subject of RBG producer Julie Cohen’s latest feature profiling three activists in the increasingly vocal community: political consultant Alicia Roth Weigel, scholar Sean Saifa Wall, and River Gallo, a filmmaker in their own right.

“Just existing as an intersex person is grounds for celebration in a world that doesn’t see us. But you know what? We are here now,” Gallo confidently declares during an interview in the film, and it would be easy to assume that the Salvadoran-American actor and screenwriter has been this outspoken for years. In fact, Gallo’s stirring speech at a demonstration held outside of Weill Cornell Medicine in New York — shot mere days into the production of Every Body — wasn’t just the first time they had spoken at an intersex protest. It was the first time they had ever been to one.

Gallo has explored their personal story in the past through a fictionalized lens in the 2019 short film Ponyboi, about an intersex sex worker in New Jersey; that film will soon become a feature co-starring none other than White Lotus star Murray Bartlett. But opening up to Cohen, and sharing their relationship with their mother onscreen, was new territory for Gallo.  

The film itself sets a precedent as well: Every Body isn’t just playing at festivals and indie cinemas, but hundreds of theaters nationwide on June 30. Chances are your local AMC has a showing. Intersex stories have rarely been told at such a powerful scale. Below, Gallo speaks with Them about the film’s wide reach, the need for allyship, and the life-saving power of intersex stories.  

River, how did you get involved in Every Body and how did you get to a place of building trust in Julie?

I was the last of the trio to sign on to being a participant in the film. I knew Saifa and Alicia through the online intersex community. We had been homies on Instagram, and we would hang out every now and then, whenever either of them were in L.A. or I was in New York. I happened to be in New York when they were planning the protest at Weill Cornell, and they asked me if I wanted to speak. And I did not hesitate because I was so excited. It was my first time attending an intersex protest — and actually the first day of filming that was captured in the movie was us preparing our posters.  [At the protest,] I kind of popped off, and I think it was the years of rage from pent-up anger at the medical establishment and just being around all these intersex people and medical students and allies who wanted to hear me speak. It piqued Julie’s interest. And then Julie asked me if I wanted to be the third subject to the documentary. 

  

For me, it was a hard decision, [but] it wasn’t that hard. It was hard in the sense that I was uncomfortable playing myself and being vulnerable like that. I think there’s quite an art form in how to just be yourself in front of a camera. Even as an actor, I was so used to playing characters and living in the confines of that structure. And also as a filmmaker, [I was hesitant] to then give creative control and license to another filmmaker to tell the story of my life. But I think that despite it being uncomfortable, sharing my trauma and sharing what the medical establishment has done to me and to my body and to my family — I know that sharing my story could save somebody’s life. And I don’t mean that lightly. I just know that my work and what I’ve shared on the internet has changed people’s lives. So I knew that I had to take the opportunity despite the discomfort, because for me, I see sharing my story as an act of service to the intersex community, and to humanity at large. 

And I was so overjoyed at the fact that, when we began shooting with Julie, she was a delightful, joyful, loving person. She’s a filmmaker who really listens and who collaborates and wants to work with the participants. She created a safe space for me to authentically be myself. And I’m so grateful for just the opportunity that Julie gave me.

I think this documentary will absolutely save lives, and it’s incredible to see that it’s playing at multiplexes! What’s it like seeing intersex stories reaching by that broad of an audience?

I cannot believe this movie is playing at the mall in New Jersey where I grew up. Like, wait what? I always had these visions of, “Oh, my first movie was going to be a movie that I wrote,” and to know that it’s actually this documentary that chronicles the most intimate parts of my life and the trailer is being played before Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City? I’m like, “What is reality?”

I mean, it’s a credit to Focus [Features] for fully believing in the power and timeliness of the story, in wanting to champion intersex stories and fully believing that this is the next frontier in the conversation of gender that’s being had right now in the country and across the world, really. So it’s surreal, but more than that, I think it’s just so beautiful that the things that we’ve been fighting for as a community of intersex activists are finally happening. We’ve been saying we need to be more visible. We’ve been telling the media to tell our stories, and now this huge company and studio is being like, “OK, here it is.” 

Intersex activist River Gallo from EVERY BODY a Focus Features release.

  

Some of the most touching moments in the film show you with your mother, flipping through old photo albums. It’s clear there’s not total understanding between you two, but also that there’s so much love. What was it like opening up that relationship on screen?

To me, seeing my relationship with my mom feels like a work of art in that it’s complex, especially as a trans and nonbinary person. My mom fully doesn’t understand all the intricacies of what all that means. As you see in the movie, Spanish is a very gendered language and she still used predominantly masculine adjectives and words and pronouns when she talks about me. 

My father and her came from El Salvador in the 1980s to escape civil war. They grew up very poor, literally on dirt floors in tin shacks. And they somehow got the courage to come to America not knowing English. I honor their journey and the lineage of where I come from so much. Of course, it’s taken me years to come to this point that I offer them so much grace and leeway. I know my mom knows who I am. She doesn’t get my pronouns, but she knows what kind of heart I have, and she sees my heart, and she’s always seen what kind of heart I have. If anything, she’s reminded me of who I am when I forget who I am. I just love her so much. And I love that the film captures what unconditional love is and what it means and how often that transcends the clunkiness of language and of what labels are.  

However, I will say after the screening at Tribeca, my sister told me that her and my mom were driving home and my mom and her were talking about the film [in Spanish.] Because there’s the part where I say my mom is never going to get my pronouns right. My mom said, “What are pronouns?” And then my sister then explained to her, and then my mom was like, “Well, what pronouns does River use?” I think that’s a beautiful testament to the power of what film can do. By watching this film, my mom is now trying to address me differently, and it’s a little miracle.

It’s hard to contrast the beauty of that unconditional love with the ugliness of the political moment we find ourselves in. As the documentary shows, many of the recent bills targeting gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth have explicit carveouts allowing surgeries on intersex children, which feels so focused on its targeting. Why do you think that lawmakers today are continuing to double down on intersex surgeries, despite increasing criticism?

Yeah, I think it’s the same fear that these conservative lawmakers have around trans people. We just want people to fit neatly into boxes. It’s easier and more palatable for us to look at a body that was born “abnormal” and fix it early so that they can adhere to these 1950s notions of men and women. It’s really insidious. People would rather have the certainty of our existing ideas of the gender binary than the reality that people’s bodies can be born in a spectrum. There’s something very difficult to metabolize about the intersex experience because it throws confusing, beautifully confounding screwball into the whole conversation. Intersex people really represent the unknown and the uncertainty of what it means to just kind of exist as you are.

And on top of how horrific it is that these conservative lawmakers are attacking and trying to defend the mutilation, oppression, and erasure of intersex people, I think it’s also important to shed light on the fact that most of the queer community who’s being very vocal and speaking about these anti-trans bills are focusing more on the trans part of it and not speaking out about the intersex portion of these bills. 

I think it’s no surprise to me that it’s taken up until now for intersex people to finally feel strong enough to take the mic and to speak out about their experience, about the legislative injustices, about the educational injustices. And I think what’s happened is that the trans movement has paved the way for intersex people to finally now be able to stand in our strength. But what I think needs to happen now is that we need that allyship and [support from] trans people, me being part of that community as well. I think for the broader queer community, it’s still a struggle for them to get on board with speaking vocally about intersex human rights.

Speaking of taking the mic, you are now in one of the most open and public-facing professions a person can choose: acting. There’s a lot of conversation recently around nonbinary acting awards categories and as you point out in the film, there’s scarcely any openly intersex actors in Hollywood. What do you think an intersex-inclusive entertainment industry looks like?

I think an intersex-inclusive entertainment industry looks like more people feeling comfortable to be out despite whatever they identify their gender as. Because you could be intersex and like Alicia still identify as cis woman or you you could be nonbinary. I know there are actors right now, probably really famous ones, who are intersex. It’s literally just statistics, but that they’re not out because of the shame and secrecy of it. So my big wish is for people who are emerging in the industry to feel comfortable being out and being open about who they are. It’s hard for sure to come out. It was very difficult for me to come out, but we just need more numbers and people on the ground to carry this movement forward.

And [we also need] people giving intersex creators money to make work. And it can’t just be me; there are so many other people who are talented and deserve the resources to make intersex stories. Especially the last few years, I’ve been very aware of the fact that the industry is attuned to wanting to be inclusive to trans people and wanting to tell trans stories. And I think we need to make that same effort now with intersex people. The more intersex people come out, the more people will see that there are a lot more intersex people than we think. We’re about 2% of the population, which is kind of a lot. 

Queery: What Does It Mean to Be Intersex?

 

In this episode of InQueery, intersex advocate and beloved them. video producer Maria Tridas breaks down the origins of the term "intersex."

I’m excited for us to get the point where people can just openly be. What’s on the horizon for you with Ponyboi? 

 

It’s currently being finished, edited, so it’s in post-production, but it’s going to come out sometime at the end of this year, beginning of next year. I wrote it, I starred it, I produced it, and it stars, some amazing people: Indya Moore, Dylan O’Brien, Murray Bartlett. It goes into my own history being intersex and my relationship with my father much more deeply than my short film did. At the same time, it’s this crime drama thriller set in New Jersey in the early 2000s. It’s wild. It’s like this mafia Euphoria fever dream.

It’s amazing to me that I have this documentary that chronicles my life growing up intersex and these very intimate moments with my family, and in the same year I’ll be able to show the world a narrative version of my experience [that] extrapolates on my philosophical views on what it means to be intersex and growing up in New Jersey and the messiness of all of that. I’m really excited for that to be out in the world as well.

Them